/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>6568517
fuck no

No ... and it shows.

>>6568517
Sounds extra based, I wish I could've been Nicolaides' student.

>>6568517
6 hours is tiresome af,you don't need all of that.At least 30 minutes should be enough,maximum 1 hour or 2

>>6568517
>6hrs
>1200 figures aprox
where that fuck i find 8400 references, so i can do for a week

>>6568517
I assume he means 6 total hours over the course of the class term, not 6 hours each and every day of class.

>>6568573
this

>>6568534
That's from vilppu's drawing manual

>>6568517

>>6568580
So you're saying it isn't too late?

>>6568573
>in a regular day class, I will have the students doing this lesson for six hours
>in a regular day class

>>6568614
https://vilppuacademy.com/products/figure-drawing-1
>week 1
>gesture
so 50-60hrs doing that

>>6568623
idk, but university life drawing classes used to be only once a week, from the morning to the evening. So the 6 hours would be all in one day

>>6568517
every drawing of a human or living being should start with gesture. Gesture is fluid and so is life. Life is made of water, without water there is no life, without gesture there is no life.

>>6568547
A video. Dancing videos. Not TikTok, ballet or such.

>>6568830
Life is just one big piss-stream, ‘innit?

>>6568517
I have a life. I go for 30min/day.

>>6568517
on really good days;
10 minutes of 20 30 seconds(gesture)
20 minutes of 10 2 minutes (construction)
5 minutes of 5 5 minutes (anatomy)

>>6568958

>>6568517
Based. Nicoleides was the best there ever lived. Not only does he shit over Loomis and Bridgman but he tells you exactly what you can do to get better.

No other book gets that fucking concrete specific. To reach that same point in a Loomis book, you have to put up with this fag talking about just absolutely outdated shit and just waxing poetic while Nicoleidea treats you like the king you are and the amazing student you deserve to be.

The hour schedule thing isn't feasible in the modern era but there is so much solid advice in his one book alone.

Just the ideas to do awesome and fun studies at times are awesome. It's like Keys To Drawing on steroids.

>>6570523
*Nicoleides

>>6570523
this is from the Vilppu drawing manual you absolute goon

>>6568517
where do you get good poses to copy? I'm not drawing retarded naked women doing stupid poses.

>>6570846
gravures

>>6568517
No. Gesture drawing is a nonsense amalgamation of separately valid methods and practices.
Yes, you can find thumbnail sketches by old masters that vaguely resemble "gesture drawings." In reality, these are a form of visual notation or shorthand. The artist has already spent hundreds or thousands of hours studying the human figure inside and out, so he is qualified to simplify it while working out compositional ideas. Teaching beginners "gesture drawing" is like teaching a child to write in shorthand before he's learned how to write properly. Backwards, stupid!
It's fine to hang your figure on a particular line ("line of action") or enclose it within a bounding shape to establish a visual motif. But this is not something done in a hurry, and it is not "gesture drawing."
The whole "gesture drawing" racket amounts to experienced artists flexing that they can suggest the essentials of a pose quickly. They've already learned the skeleton and muscles, the mechanics of the joints, the proportions; and they've completed many highly rendered figure drawings that took 6 to 12 hours (or more) of careful study and labor.
Trust me on this.
An artist friend, an amazing draftsman and painter who studied at the best ateliers in the US and Europe long before social media and online art schools, told me outright that "gesture drawing" is nonsense, and advised that what's *most* important in capturing the essence of a pose is making sure the alignments are correct (i.e. pay attention to where plumb lines fall, as from the pit of the model's neck to the inner ankle, or wherever it might happen to be).

>>6570889
genius

>>6570907
pyw

>>6570907
uh, sure if you are working from a model and gonna spend hours copying it like a photo, gesture is meh. but who is here for that?

>>6570946
Did you even read my post?
You can't draw well from imagination unless you've spent many, many hours drawing from models and studying anatomy (and that's assuming you also have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of form, perspective, etc.). If you've already done that, you can quickly set up a pose because you'll know what's essential and what needs to be filled in later if you decide to take the drawing further.
Suggesting beginners work rapidly and "feel" this or that is just bad teaching, inculcating bad habits and dashed expectations.
By the way, most people peddling "gesture" for beginners are teaching it specifically as a way to draw from models, so I don't know what you're on about.

>>6570942
Just for you, anon. From imagination.

>>6570966
Anon….I

>>6570966
Or from life, if you'd like.

>>6570966
>>6570971
lel xerox niggers

>>6571022
>from imagination
>xerox

>>6570953
Cartoons and gestures go hand in hand. This is 2023 ic, not 2013

>>6570966
>>6570971
This is not actually the guy itt saying gestures are worthless is it? Someone is just trolling him?

>>6571171
nta but what’s your point??

>>6570966
Anon, I’m not saying you need to do more gestures… but you do need to do more quick poses. Learn to lay in a solid, proportionate, and anatomically correct figure, quickly, without always taking it to rendering. This is beg shit

>>6570889
My only problem with this is they're always wearing heels, so you don't get to practice grounded/foreshortened feet.

>>6570966
>casually imaginationmoggs you

But to be perfectly real, I kind of agree with what this anon is saying. Kind of. I found myself having lots of trouble with gesture, working through Michael Hampton's stuff. It's not until I did Bridgman, Morpho, and some Will Weston stuff that I became more comfortable with it. The way I see it, gesture and construction are like push and pull muscles in lifting, you don't want to overwork one. If your figures are too stiff, focus more on the gestural qualities. If your gesture drawings consistently look like shit, learn your construction and simplifed anatomy a bit better. But I'm still pretty /beg/ so grain of salt.

>>6571297
Agreed. This is why Vilppu only spends 1 chapter on gesture, but the rest of his book on form and the use of light to describe form. His priority is with solid drawing, first and foremost. You just have to not give up on the first chapter.

>>6571171
>>6571193
>seething crabs don’t post their work
>every time

>>6570966
>>6570971
I don't want to be rude anon, but when you make bold claims..

>>6571540
And yet, so far, best drawings ITT…

>>6571713
nope. refer to >>6571297

>>6571713
Who gives a shit? They are beg.

>>6571540
kek, I'm the one who posted those two drawings. In all seriousness, you can take my original comments on their own merits, or not. The anon asked me to post my work. I'm not going to post professional work here, so I did an under-10-minute sketch from imagination on scrap paper; the academic figure drawing is from my student days. Really, if you think about, it's the gesture bros. who are making "bold claims," because there's no evidence of any great artist before the 20th century having practiced or advocated "gesture drawing." It's a fad that caught on and is being mindlessly regurgitated by teachers who no doubt mean well but should know better.

>>6571832
>there's no evidence of any great artist before the 20th century having practiced or advocated "gesture drawing."
You put that in quotes. What is a "gesture drawing" to you? The OP examples look like 10s gestures, but gesture drawing can be done for a full figure.

>>6571888
based. All modern training comes down from the Renaissance

>>6571888
I also found this lol, not gesture but it was too good not to post
>Jacopo Pontormo self portrait
sup ladies?

more masterful gestures from Jacopo

>>6571888
Addressed this claim in my original post, see:
>>6570907

>>6571832
confirmed for not knowing shit about art history. wait, what are those in the bottom left? no no no
also, you have no professional work. unless you're talking about something that doesn't involve the human figure, in which case who gives a fuck.

>>6571911
Confirmed for lacking basic reading comprehension skills. Alas! I’ve noticed the people who talk the most trash here are the stupidest and also the least likely to post their own work.

>>6571917
what's the point of you posting your work when you backpedal and say it was student work from 10 years ago or whatever. i'm not going to judge the "drawing from imagination", other than saying you have zero understanding of anatomy. would bet 10,000 dollars you don't draw the human figure on a regular basis.

>>6571906
Visual notation, shorthand or simplification is not what gesture drawing is.
Capturing the flow or rhythm of a figure, has a different purpose than copying directly what you see infront of you. You call it capturing the essentials of a pose, like it's the gist with accurate proportions or anatomy.

>>6571924
*And it's not the gist, or about anatomical accuracy, to be clear.

>>6571920
I haven’t backpedaled; I think the work is fine for what it is. I would be interested to hear your critique, though. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?

>>6571832
>there's no evidence of any great artist before the 20th century having practiced or advocated "gesture drawing." It's a fad that caught on and is being mindlessly regurgitated by teachers who no doubt mean well but should know better.
https://files.catbox.moe/8pv705.png
>told me outright that "gesture drawing" is nonsense
LMAO
https://www.proko.com/lesson/gesture-and-anatomy-full-demo/

Concession Accepted

>>6571917
>>6571906
Vilppu calls it "Gesture" drawing, but in his lectures he really means "compositional drawing". Watch his nma lecture on gesture. It's all right there. The whole point of gesture is to lay down a basic figure properly. The name of the concept changed, but it's the same concept. If you can't understand this, it's time to ask a doctor to add some wrinkles to your smooth ass brain

>>6571926
it's extremely stiff and doesn't show anything like what a human would look like doing that action. this is why vilppu stresses gesture so much for the industry he works in most of the time, animation. it's crucial for animators (or at least it was in old disney era) to understand how the body looks in motion or they will produce work that is retarded and bad.

i'm not going to post my work because it wouldn't be a fair comparison. i actually study the human form daily for multiple hours and understand what movement is, and i do warmups from reality before doing figures from imagination. you seem to think teachers like vilppu use gesture studies as a way to trick beginners into never drawing rendered humans, which makes zero sense at all and follows no logic. it's not always possible to do a careful study of a scene with plumb lines like your friend, which is why gesture is so important. pic related.

if you knew anything about art history, you'd know old masters didn't have some insane photographic memory of every single muscle origin and insertion, bones, which they then somehow magically trim down to a "shorthand" thumbnail sketch. that makes absolutely no sense and is completely backwards. if they understood exactly what they wanted to draw in perfect detail, they wouldn't need a thumbnail at all. they started with rapid sketches, typically executed from imagination, to capture the basic composition, including the movement. that's what a gesture drawing IS. they then prepared wax figures (maquettes) with lighting to solidify the composition and begin underpainting. later they would use human models to do the final rendered scene with all details. they always went from simple to complex, with the gesture/thumbnail as the foundation for later more finished work. the point of gesture studies is to allow you to rapidly (15-30 seconds) indicate the human form, without it ending up completely stiff like your 10 minute painstaking line drawing.

>>6571947
tintoretto is vilppu's greatest inspiration for the way he approaches gesture studies. but remember, before the 20th century nobody EVER executed rapid drawings of the human form in order to get the basic idea of a composition down quickly while it's still fresh in their mind

>>6571938
Loose sketches by master artists ≠ beginners with little to no training in figure drawing, anatomy and perspective flailing about trying to “feel” the pose. You keep trying to move the goalpost, but the fact remains, art instruction of the past emphasized careful observation and accuracy in drawing first and foremost.
>”The imitation, by beginners, of off-hand sketches, or memoranda, by practised artists, however spirited, and often effective, should be discouraged. They are, frequently, little more than the short hand notes of a writer—intelligible to him, but only conveying, to others, faint and uncertain ideas—dashed off in a moment of haste, or under circumstances that would preclude the possibility of doing more at the time, intended for the private use of the artist alone, and serving to preserve the recollection of the subject upon his mind, for future elaboration. To him, such sketches are invaluable; but, for the use of others, something more is required. A drawing and a sketch are two different things. Although one must learn to draw, before he can sketch, the capacity for one is dependent upon the other.” —John Gadsby Chapman, 1847

>>6571947
>stiff
You know, not all figure drawing is for animation or needs to be exaggerated to the nth degree. See picrel, from the Parthenon (not that I’m comparing myself to the immortal sculptor behind that work). Anyway, “retarded” and “bad” isn’t a very useful critique. I expected to learn from such an expert as yourself where my anatomy had erred.
>I’m not going to post my work
Kek, this board…

Did anyone upload vilppu's nma figure drawing course? This is the only vilppu thread up that's why I'm asking here

>>6572003
not him, but do you want a redline of your figure? I don't disagree with a lot of your views btw, but your work could use more knowledge of form and anatomy

>>6572003
nta, but a critique would be it lacks the feeling of weight, gravity, flesh, push and pull. one other thing that feels missing to me is overlapping forms, she looks kind of like she is flat, fly swatted.

I really don't understand gesture. I draw figures all the time but I usually just construct everything instead of making those weird lines.

>>6572003
I don't know how this got so complicated. of course plumb lines are useful, sargent swore by one, but the old masters often had to rely on their imagination to draft the composition for a scene. like anytime horses appear or there's a big battle. that's where gesture drawing is most useful for a painter. it's not intended to produce amazing looking, finished pieces. as for exaggeration, a good rule of thumb is that the line art / "drawing" will end up looking more stiff than the sketch no matter what, so you should always exaggerate the momentum in the gesture drawing, because a lot of it won't translate into the more finished stages. but i don't always manage to do that, myself.

pic: advice from henry mosler circa 1880s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7WjcV-Sdjg
james gurney's process, shown in this video, is roughly how the old masters went about it from what we know - but they made figures out of wax rather than sculpey. the masters always started with a basic sketch, of which the gesture drawing is a key element. if you google "tintoretto sketch" you'll see plenty of examples of "gesture drawings" by an old master. if you want to quibble that they didn't call it "gesture", they didn't use the word "thumbnail", either.

the master's wax figures presumably weren't as detailed as the ones gurney puts together here. to make up for it, the masters would always have people posing for them in the final stages of painting, which is kind of a leg up on modern artists. pretty fucking expensive nowadays to have 4 people posing in some elaborate composition w/ drapery for you to paint. why is all of this important? it debunks the notion that the masters had some kind of magic photographic memory of the human body. sure, they understood the musculature better than basically all modern artists, but they still went through an iterative process, which starts with something approximating a gesture drawing, which is why it's important.

>>6571986
>1847
LOL
there's a reason both arthur dow and robert hale constantly mocked this accuracy obsession, you atelier retards produce nothing of actual value other than bioshock kangaroos, passive statues, as seen in this very thread.
>>6572003
now you're cherrypicking whatever fits your view. kek.

>>6568841
what you have against ballet? uou seriously put ballet to tiktok level lmao

>>6572209
ESL bros... not like this...

>>6572209
"ballet good, tiktok bad" was the intended message. misplaced modifier

>>6572229
JEFFERY DAHMER USES IC CONFIRMED. REAL

>>6572231
DO GESTURE DRAWINGS OR I WILL EAT YOUR WHOLE ASS!!!

>>6572236
that was albert fish bro

>>6572251
shit i read his wiki just now and my day is ruined.

>>6572258
at least you didn't google daisy's destruction

>>6572176
It got complicated because one or more retards didn't read my original post before replying, or else just lack basic reading comprehension skills.

See for yourself, I wrote:
>Yes, you can find thumbnail sketches by old masters that vaguely resemble "gesture drawings." In reality, these are a form of visual notation or shorthand. The artist has already spent hundreds or thousands of hours studying the human figure inside and out, so he is qualified to simplify it while working out compositional ideas. Teaching beginners "gesture drawing" is like teaching a child to write in shorthand before he's learned how to write properly.

The retard(s) responded with images of rough sketches by Pontormo (a Renaissance master), as if this was some kind of "own" instead of reinforcement of my point! And they only doubled down after I pointed them to my original quote, leading me to believe that they might be actually, literally retarded.

To be clear, not that it will help: At no point prior to the mid-20th century was "gesture drawing" a branch of study directed at beginners. As indicated by the John Gadsby Chapman quote which I posted earlier, learning to draw (i.e. through careful observation and labor) was always viewed as a prerequisite to sketching, and sketching is an artist's personal shorthand (a point which is also made by Mosler in your post's image; he calls it a "memorandum"). Rapid sketches were used to work out imaginative compositions, or to capture fleeting action from life when either time or circumstance would not allow for a more finished drawing to be made (such as in noting down the movement of a dancer, before the invention of photography).

By the way, John Gadsby Chapman was commissioned by the U.S. Congress for a huge (18 x 12 ft.) historical painting, back when you had to be good to receive such a commission. He also wrote one of the most widely used, and imitated, art instruction books of all time. I'll take his opinion over any modern hack.

>>6571297
>The way I see it, gesture and construction are like push and pull muscles in lifting, you don't want to overwork one. If your figures are too stiff, focus more on the gestural qualities. If your gesture drawings consistently look like shit, learn your construction and simplifed anatomy a bit better.
Precisely. Many students at the time when Bridgman and Nicolaides were teaching noticed that the two teachers balance each other out.

>>6572331
Every day we stray further from god's light.

>>6572018
That’s a fair critique, although it is veering more into questions of style and aesthetics rather than supposed egregious anatomical errors hinted at by the other anon (who won’t post his work because it would blow us all away, kek).

>>6572538
>it's my style!
sorry... old habit

Why is Michelangelo's student drawing quick gestures? Did he teach him to do this? or was his student a master of anatomy at this point(hard to tell) and using shorthand?

>>6572572
*the student drawings are the faint red ones in chalk, copying Michelangelo's pen sketch.

>>6571193
>>6571947
Okay, I gotta chime in here. The anon clearly knows anatomy, and you are showing your ignorance. The lines in that drawing suggest much with little, which is frankly the way to go for a female figure.
Evident at a glance-- emphasis on triceps of her left arm which is fully extended (so triceps is engaged). Also, we can see the mass of the wrist flexors, and their tendons passing into the carpus.
from the right shoulder, trapezius is seen rising up back of the neck. Right scapular/teres major mass is indicated with overlap, and in right arm we can see (subtly) along the top contour deltoid, biceps, brachioradialis, even a hint of thumb extensors. On bottom contour olecranon process of ulna and transition to wrist.
Turn of the pose and transition between rib cage and pelvis is suggested by line of the central groove running down back to the buttocks. The legs correctly show gluteal mass bunched up on the left, and relaxed on the right. same for quads, bulged on the left leg which is extended (quads are the extensors of the leg) and relaxed on the right, where the biceps is more pronounced.
Hands and feet are drawn correctly (the feet are a little small, but that's common in classical art) and breast is placed correctly. Face reads pleasingly with only a few marks. It's not a showy drawing but a beg could not have done it. When begs knows a little anatomy, they can't help putting in lines for every muscle they know.
Also, great line confidence anon, and trad no less.

>>6572669
Construction is the disease, Gesture is the cure. Cobra.

>>6572669
So why does it look beg? It resembles beg drawing style. Line weight? It really looks beg, I'm surprised the anatomy is relatively accurate.

>>6572716
I dunnon anon, it's a line drawing of a fairly simple, "2D" pose without foreshortening? It's clear he didn't carry it very far but if it was rendered to a finish I doubt we'd be having this conversation.

>>6570907
I know who your friend is and his name starts with an O, and he is stubborn and fails to understand context
Walk into an animation studio and tell them gesture isn't a real thing
Tell a comic artist gesture isn't a real thing
Hell tell a splash illustrator gesture isn't a real thing
Yeah when copying casts and doing academic drawing gesture isn't a "thing", but for everyone not fucking spending 3 days on a single figure yeah it is an effective means of studying the figure
And yes I think every artist should learn how to draw using measurement because it helps train accuracy. I personally do a lot of enveloping exercises
But to pretend that is the be all end all is just silly, in the same regard that pretending gesture is the be all and all
There exists a need for both concepts
Understand that there is a pretty big difference between academic art, where your entire goal is to copy EXACTLY what you see using measurement and everything else
Like an animator, for example, will never sit in front of a model and bust out a measuring stick and a plumb.
One's method of study should be directly charted based on what their goals are, and for the overwhelming majority of artists that want to draw compelling figures should include gesture drawing as a study
Just because no mention of gesture exists before a certain date doesn't mean gesture is some made up concept, quite a lot of things didn't "exist" in art before certain times and that does not invalidate them conceptually
Wanna say that atmospheric perspective isn't a thing because Caravaggio didn't know what Raleigh scattering was?
Hell almost every descriptor of light we use in art now is modern because of light science
But does that mean that artists before didn't have a natural understanding from their own observation (limited, though that is another topic).
Also, stop regurgitating other people's arguments and learn to think for yourself
Do you actually believe gesture is bullshit or do you just believe O

>>6572996
now I'm curious who this "O" figure is

>>6572996
>Focuses many hours on drawing anatomy
>Every freaking muscle, bone and tendon represented.
>"eww I'm not drawing a penis, THAT'S GAY!"
Wow, wtf is wrong with people?

>>6573154
Admit it, you just wanna see a pp.

>>6570907
>>6572487
Based, gesture drawing always felt like shit to me and I stopped doing it. I just loosely build up using directional shapes and it's so much better.
>>6570953
Not as based, but useful if you want to be a xeroxnigger or draw realistically. I draw anime porn and I'm not really interested in making things like the vast majority of art in this thread.

>>6572258
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMcXkA-dWb4

>>6570966
>>6572669
>>6572716
>>6572996
man what is going on in this thread im having a laugh right now

>>6572996
I don’t think it’s wrong to make rapid studies of the figure, or to exaggerate or stylize as one’s needs might dictate. My point is that telling beginners to do it, before they have put in the time to learn the figure *as it is*, is putting the cart before the horse. And you know many figure drawing and anatomy teachers on YouTube and elsewhere do exactly that. They tell beginners working from the model to “feel” something intangible and jot it down in 30 seconds or a minute. And it’s funny how triggered some people are by my saying this. If you want to do “gesture,” nobody is stopping you. I’m just telling you what *I* believe based on my own experience and research. And no, my friend’s name doesn’t start with “O,” nor have I spoken with him in many years, but now I’m also curious as to who “O” is.

>>6572669
Wow, I think you might be overselling my little drawing but thanks, anatomy guy.

>>6573383
>experience and research
Its called an 'anecdote' and based on your stiff academic work it's absolutely valueless.

>gesture for 6 hours
Sounds pointless and excessive. There's not much reason to do it for 6 hours daily for a few reasons
>More time trying to perfect it will lead to less time to actually put it into practice
>the process will be less enjoyable
>you most likely will lose interest and learning will become less effective
This just sounds like a blatant case of working harder instead of smarter. Imo the only thing you should spend hours on are things you're observing or trying to understand. This just promotes mindless grinding behavior.

>>6573383
>as it is
So... atelier copying? The method that produces so many grifter teachers because they can't do anything else imaginatively? So they end up baiting so many aspiring artists into becoming another copy machine instead of their own works?
You're responsible for this vicious circle, and you're too stuck up to see this.

>>6573383
Your mistake is in saying beginners shouldn't do it AT ALL. That's completely untrue. You need to do both long and short studies, with most of your time spent on 5-10 minute constructions, not hours spent slavishly copying the contours and lighting of the figure. You'll learn way more with rapid construction drawings.

>>6573409
How am I responsible, exactly? I don’t run an atelier. I did study in one for a short time, and was achieving good results, but found it boring to continue with at length. I do think it’s a good way of learning to observe and draw accurately, and the method has been pretty well refined so that almost anyone who puts in the time will improve. But it’s not the only way of learning to draw.

Absolute beginners are not going to art schools.
>Oh I'll just spend thousands of dollars for instruction on figure drawing and I've never put pencil to paper before, I don't even know if I'll like it.
So I can't see a problem with teaching gesture to fresh students. Excessive in favor of all else? Depends on the goal.

>>6573039
Big O. I think he's a robot or something? Makes sense he doesn't get gesture.

>gesture drawing website (take your pick)
>default settings
>40 gorillion images
>male pics only
>14 images

:(

>>6573637
The mirror is free :)

>>6573641
I don't want to draw ugly retards, anon, I want to draw sexy men

>>6573637
And another thing I forgot to add to my whinepost
>they're all ant quality and 70% of them are shitty walmart ninja outfits

>shitty walmart ninja outfits
Kek quickposes. Good times.

>>6573431
How do i do rapid construction drawings, it takes me way too long when I just copy lineart

>>6573727
Copy Morpho: Simplified Forms, or get "How to draw comics the Marvel way". There are basic mannequin figures there. Then, get on a site like quickposes and draw the references, but using the mannequin figure.

When you get comfortable with that, copy Bridgman twice, while doing those construction figures for 30 minutes a day

>>6573456
nta, but which one did you study in? were you 'good' before attending one?

>>6576619
I'd rather not say, but it was early days of this particular atelier, which later grew and moved into a larger space. The founder is no longer there, and I don't know the people running it currently. I had some aptitude for drawing before studying there and I'd loved drawing since childhood, but it was untrained. At the time most college art programs were run by modernists; YouTube and other social media did not yet exist, and there was very little information online about where a student could get proper training. So I didn't even think it was possible for me to learn drawing from a teacher. Meeting the founder of this atelier was a stroke of luck, and an eye-opening experience for me (in seeing that it was possible for an artist in the modern world to draw like an old master) and he definitely instilled good craftsmanship and taught me a lot about drawing.